Chapter XI
The Great Agra Treasure

Our captive sat in the cabin opposite to the iron box which he
had done so much and waited so long to gain. He was a sunburned,
reckless-eyed fellow, with a net-work of lines and wrinkles all
over his mahogany features, which told of a hard, open-air life.
There was a singular prominence about his bearded chin which
marked a man who was not to be easily turned from his purpose.
His age may have been fifty or thereabouts, for his black, curly
hair was thickly shot with gray. His face in repose was not an
unpleasing one, though his heavy brows and aggressive chin gave
him, as I had lately seen, a terrible expression when moved to
anger. He sat now with his handcuffed hands upon his lap, and
his head sunk upon his breast, while he looked with his keen,
twinkling eyes at the box which had been the cause of his ill-
doings. It seemed to me that there was more sorrow than anger in
his rigid and contained countenance. Once he looked up at me
with a gleam of something like humor in his eyes.

"Well, Jonathan Small," said Holmes, lighting a cigar, "I am
sorry that it has come to this."

"And so am I, sir," he answered, frankly. "I don't believe that
I can swing over the job. I give you my word on the book that I
never raised hand against Mr. Sholto. It was that little hell-
hound Tonga who shot one of his cursed darts into him. I had no
part in it, sir. I was as grieved as if it had been my blood-
relation. I welted the little devil with the slack end of the
rope for it, but it was done, and I could not undo it again."

"Have a cigar," said Holmes; "and you had best take a pull out of
my flask, for you are very wet. How could you expect so small
and weak a man as this black fellow to overpower Mr. Sholto and
hold him while you were climbing the rope?"

"You seem to know as much about it as if you were there, sir.
The truth is that I hoped to find the room clear. I knew the
habits of the house pretty well, and it was the time when Mr.
Sholto usually went down to his supper. I shall make no secret
of the business. The best defence that I can make is just the
simple truth. Now, if it had been the old major I would have
swung for him with a light heart. I would have thought no more
of knifing him than of smoking this cigar. But it's cursed hard
that I should be lagged over this young Sholto, with whom I had
no quarrel whatever."

"You are under the charge of Mr. Athelney Jones, of Scotland
Yard. He is going to bring you up to my rooms, and I shall ask
you for a true account of the matter. You must make a clean
breast of it, for if you do I hope that I may be of use to you.
I think I can prove that the poison acts so quickly that the man
was dead before ever you reached the room."

"That he was, sir. I never got such a turn in my life as when I
saw him grinning at me with his head on his shoulder as I climbed
through the window. It fairly shook me, sir. I'd have half
killed Tonga for it if he had not scrambled off. That was how he
came to leave his club, and some of his darts too, as he tells
me, which I dare say helped to put you on our track; though how
you kept on it is more than I can tell. I don't feel no malice
against you for it. But it does seem a queer thing," he added,
with a bitter smile, "that I who have a fair claim to nigh upon
half a million of money should spend the first half of my life
building a breakwater in the Andamans, and am like to spend the
other half digging drains at Dartmoor. It was an evil day for me
when first I clapped eyes upon the merchant Achmet and had to do
with the Agra treasure, which never brought anything but a curse
yet upon the man who owned it. To him it brought murder, to
Major Sholto it brought fear and guilt, to me it has meant
slavery for life."

At this moment Athelney Jones thrust his broad face and heavy
shoulders into the tiny cabin. "Quite a family party," he
remarked. "I think I shall have a pull at that flask, Holmes.
Well, I think we may all congratulate each other. Pity we didn't
take the other alive; but there was no choice. I say, Holmes,
you must confess that you cut it rather fine. It was all we
could do to overhaul her."

"All is well that ends well," said Holmes. "But I certainly did
not know that the Aurora was such a clipper."

"Smith says she is one of the fastest launches on the river, and
that if he had had another man to help him with the engines we
should never have caught her. He swears he knew nothing of this
Norwood business."

"Neither he did," cried our prisoner,--"not a word. I chose his
launch because I heard that she was a flier. We told him
nothing, but we paid him well, and he was to get something
handsome if we reached our vessel, the Esmeralda, at Gravesend,
outward bound for the Brazils."

"Well, if he has done no wrong we shall see that no wrong comes
to him. If we are pretty quick in catching our men, we are not
so quick in condemning them." It was amusing to notice how the
consequential Jones was already beginning to give himself airs on
the strength of the capture. From the slight smile which played
over Sherlock Holmes's face, I could see that the speech had not
been lost upon him.

"We will be at Vauxhall Bridge presently," said Jones, "and shall
land you, Dr. Watson, with the treasure-box. I need hardly tell
you that I am taking a very grave responsibility upon myself in
doing this. It is most irregular; but of course an agreement is
an agreement. I must, however, as a matter of duty, send an
inspector with you, since you have so valuable a charge. You
will drive, no doubt?"

"Yes, I shall drive."

"It is a pity there is no key, that we may make an inventory
first. You will have to break it open. Where is the key, my
man?"

"At the bottom of the river," said Small, shortly.

"Hum! There was no use your giving this unnecessary trouble. We
have had work enough already through you. However, doctor, I
need not warn you to be careful. Bring the box back with you to
the Baker Street rooms. You will find us there, on our way to
the station."

They landed me at Vauxhall, with my heavy iron box, and with a
bluff, genial inspector as my companion. A quarter of an hour's
drive brought us to Mrs. Cecil Forrester's. The servant seemed
surprised at so late a visitor. Mrs. Cecil Forrester was out for
the evening, she explained, and likely to be very late. Miss
Morstan, however, was in the drawing-room: so to the drawing-
room I went, box in hand, leaving the obliging inspector in the
cab.

She was seated by the open window, dressed n some sort of white
diaphanous material, with a little touch of scarlet at the neck
and waist. The soft light of a shaded lamp fell upon her as she
leaned back in the basket chair, playing over her sweet, grave
face, and tinting with a dull, metallic sparkle the rich coils of
her luxuriant hair. One white arm and hand drooped over the side
of the chair, and her whole pose and figure spoke of an absorbing
melancholy. At the sound of my foot-fall she sprang to her feet,
however, and a bright flush of surprise and of pleasure colored
her pale cheeks.

"I heard a cab drive up," she said. "I thought that Mrs.
Forrester had come back very early, but I never dreamed that it
might be you. What news have you brought me?"

"I have brought something better than news," said I, putting down
the box upon the table and speaking jovially and boisterously,
though my heart was heavy within me. "I have brought you
something which is worth all the news in the world. I have
brought you a fortune."

She glanced at iron box. "Is that the treasure, then?" she
asked, coolly enough.

"Yes, this is the great Agra treasure. Half of it is yours and
half is Thaddeus Sholto's. You will have a couple of hundred
thousand each. Think of that! An annuity of ten thousand
pounds. There will be few richer young ladies in England. Is it
not glorious?"

I think that I must have been rather overacting my delight, and
that she detected a hollow ring in my congratulations, for I saw
her eyebrows rise a little, and she glanced at me curiously.

"If I have it," said she, "I owe it to you."

"No, no," I answered, "not to me, but to my friend Sherlock
Holmes. With all the will in the world, I could never have
followed up a clue which has taxed even his analytical genius.
As it was, we very nearly lost it at the last moment."

"Pray sit down and tell me all about it, Dr. Watson," said she.

I narrated briefly what had occurred since I had seen her last,--
Holmes's new method of search, the discovery of the Aurora, the
appearance of Athelney Jones, our expedition in the evening, and
the wild chase down the Thames. She listened with parted lips
and shining eyes to my recital of our adventures. When I spoke
of the dart which had so narrowly missed us, she turned so white
that I feared that she was about to faint.

"It is nothing," she said, as I hastened to pour her out some
water. "I am all right again. It was a shock to me to hear that
I had placed my friends in such horrible peril."

"That is all over," I answered. "It was nothing. I will tell
you no more gloomy details. Let us turn to something brighter.
There is the treasure. What could be brighter than that? I got
leave to bring it with me, thinking that it would interest you to
be the first to see it."

"It would be of the greatest interest to me," she said. There
was no eagerness in her voice, however. It had struck her,
doubtless, that it might seem ungracious upon her part to be
indifferent to a prize which had cost so much to win.

"What a pretty box!" she said, stooping over it. This is Indian
work, I suppose?"

"Yes; it is Benares metal-work."

And so heavy!" she exclaimed, trying to raise it. "The box alone
must be of some value. Where is the key?"

"Small threw it into the Thames," I answered. "I must borrow
Mrs. Forrester's poker." There was in the front a thick and
broad hasp, wrought in the image of a sitting Buddha. Under this
I thrust the end of the poker and twisted it outward as a lever.
The hasp sprang open with a loud snap. With trembling fingers I
flung back the lid. We both stood gazing in astonishment. The
box was empty!

No wonder that it was heavy. The iron-work was two-thirds of an
inch thick all round. It was massive, well made, and solid, like
a chest constructed to carry things of great price, but not one
shred or crumb of metal or jewelry lay within it. It was
absolutely and completely empty.

"The treasure is lost," said Miss Morstan, calmly.

As I listened to the words and realized what they meant, a great
shadow seemed to pass from my soul. I did not know how this Agra
treasure had weighed me down, until now that it was finally
removed. It was selfish, no doubt, disloyal, wrong, but I could
realize nothing save that the golden barrier was gone from
between us. "Thank God!" I ejaculated from my very heart.

She looked at me with a quick, questioning smile. "Why do you
say that?" she asked.

"Because you are within my reach again," I said, taking her hand.
She did not withdraw it. "Because I love you, Mary, as truly as
ever a man loved a woman. Because this treasure, these riches,
sealed my lips. Now that they are gone I can tell you how I love
you. That is why I said, 'Thank God.'"

"Then I say, 'Thank God,' too," she whispered, as I drew her to
my side. Whoever had lost a treasure, I knew that night that I
had gained one.